title: A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages.
abstract: The origins of Ashkenazi Jews remain highly controversial. Like Judaism, mitochondrial DNA is passed along the maternal line. Its variation in the Ashkenazim is highly distinctive, with four major and numerous minor founders. However, due to their rarity in the general population, these founders have been difficult to trace to a source. Here we show that all four major founders, ~40% of Ashkenazi mtDNA variation, have ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather than the Near East or Caucasus. Furthermore, most of the remaining minor founders share a similar deep European ancestry. Thus the great majority of Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly supposed, nor recruited in the Caucasus, as sometimes suggested, but assimilated within Europe. These results point to a significant role for the conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities, and provide the foundation for a detailed reconstruction of Ashkenazi genealogical history.
authors.affiliation: 1] Institute of Integrative and Comparative Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK [2] IPATIMUP (Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto), Porto 4200-465, Portugal [3].
authors.forename: Marta D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.forename: Joana B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pala
authors.forename: Verónica
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Fernandes
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Olivieri
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Achilli
authors.forename: Ugo A
authors.initials: UA
authors.lastname: Perego
authors.forename: Sergei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rychkov
authors.forename: Oksana
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Naumova
authors.forename: Jiři
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hatina
authors.forename: Scott R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Woodward
authors.forename: Ken Khong
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Eng
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Macaulay
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Soares
authors.forename: Luísa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Martin B
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Richards
mesh_terms: D001499:Bayes Theorem; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics / Q000266:history; D005060:Europe; D005260:Female; D018703:Founder Effect; D005789:Genealogy and Heraldry; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D006239:Haplotypes; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049690:History, Ancient; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D040582:Inheritance Patterns; D007585:Jews / Q000235:genetics* / Q000266:history; D008297:Male; D010802:Phylogeny; D058974:Phylogeography
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial